Half naked Wednesday ;)

Earlier this week I was reading a Dutch magazine called Quest. They used to call themselves a scientific magazine but these days it’s a braintainment magazine. But hey, who cares what it’s called, you are probably here for the nakedness. Well, do I have a surprise in store for you! Drum roll please….Hmmz… not the thing you had hoped for? Well, I am sorry, but you have to admit that it is half (a body) and it is naked (or at least I think so)! Okay fair enough, but what’s it all about, you may think. Well here’s the story.

Like I mentioned above, I was reading this magazine and it had an interesting article about Obesity.We’ve all seen the headlines like “Obesity is becoming top US killer” or “Europeans see obesity increasing”, so it wasn’t like I was reading something new or anything but seeing obesity in action was quite a different story.

The body scan shown above shows the body of a healthy lady age 36. She weighs 54 kilos and her height: 1.65 meters. Her BMI is 20. Below you will find the body scan of an obese person. This lady is 40; she weighs 113 kilos and her height: 1.67 meters. Her BMI is 40.All the yellowy/pinkish/light colours are fat. I was really surprised by the amount of fat in the stomach area. Okay it’s quite “normal” to expect that amount of fat on the outside, but on the inside too? I was a bit surprised. It looks like there is even fat in the eye sockets…… scary! I would never want to look like that! To motive myself I’ve put these pictures up on my refrigerator. A bit scary to look at every day, but fear can be a very good motivator :)

Mind, Body & Soul sessions (#12)

Stop Mindless Eating, Start Eating Mindfully

Do you find yourself continually reaching for that second helping, taking nibbles and bites while you are cooking, filling dinner plates to the rim, finishing leftovers, staring down the contents of your refrigerator waiting for something to beckon to you, or finishing meals in record time? If the answer is YES! Well then it is time to congratulate you, so here it is Congratulations, you are now officially a Mindless Eater. Hmm… congratulating you does not feel right; actually I should offer you my condolences. Mindless eating is bad….BAD, because mindless eating can lead to eating amnesia. This means you cannot accurately remember what and how much you actually ate. It’s hard to keep track of how much you are eating when you are doing something else like watching TV, cooking, reading, checking your email, or talking on the phone. Plus the kind of food that you can easily eat when you are multi-tasking is usually food you can pick up with your fingers. Unless you eat celery sticks or fruit, most finger foods are high in calories. And hey, just because you can’t remember what you ate and all those calories that came along with it, doesn’t mean they aren’t real.

A lot of our unhealthy eating behaviours are simply bad habits, inherited from our parents or influenced by our environment. But these little habits can have a huge impact on how many calories you eat each day and ultimately, how much you weigh.

So, maybe it’s time for a change and maybe it’s time to examine your relationship with food, which can be both enlightening and liberating. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to end the mindless eating and start to eat mindfully.

Your task, if you want to change you eating behaviour: Dedicate this week to paying attention – and I really mean pay attention- to how you eat your food. That means no snacking because you're upset or bored, no eating while standing in front of the fridge or preparing your meals, no grazing mindlessly while staring at the TV or your computer screen and no turning meals into multitasking affairs.

Instead of wolfing down a sandwich at your computer, take 15 minutes to truly enjoy your meal. Sit down, push everything else aside, give yourself plenty of room and actually taste what you're eating. Think about the food you're putting into your mouth and consciously chew, take pleasure in every bite. Eat slowly and stop when you're comfortable. Remember that as your food reaches your stomach, you will feel full. Eating slower helps you eat less, by simply slowing down and taking the time to truly enjoy your meals, you can trim calories too (now, isn’t that a great plus :)).

So, in short, Eating Mindfully is all about paying attention? Yup, Eating Mindfully is all about paying attention to what you eat, when you eat, where you eat, how it taste and controlling what goes in your mouth when you're stressed, upset, or just plain bored. Sound easy enough! But still, you have to be smart and some tips might come in handy, so here are 3 tips that will help you during moments of weakness.

Plan Ahead – You can’t eat it, if you don’t have it: In a moment of weakness or boredom, there's nothing easier than grabbing the Ben & Jerry’s from the freezer (or your snack of choice) and devour it. But what if indulgences like that aren't in the house? If it isn’t there, you can’t eat. Stock your kitchen with fruits, vegetables, pudding cups, frozen fruit bars, and yogurt a.k.a healthy snacks!

Treat Yourself To A Treat from time to time: There's nothing wrong with an occasional treat, they often make eating healthy a little easier. Whether it's a small bag of chips, a handful of M&M’s during your favourite TV show or an ice cream cone on a warm day, giving yourself permission to eat it removes the need for secret binge sessions.

Stay Active During TV Time: Keeping your hands and head occupied can keep you from the television haze-induced snacking. This doesn’t mean you have to stay active all the time, but when you feel a snack attack coming on, don’t snack, do something else instead. For example: exercise, knit, or do a crossword! It doesn't matter what it is, just keep busy and keep your mind of the snacks!

Now go on……Eat, Drink & Be Merry, but above all….Mindful!!

How a village idiot had a blast and burned roughly 800 calories.

Well I went to the other two festival nights and I hate to say it, but there isn’t all that much to tell about Saturday. The revue sucked, or at least I believe it sucked! Couldn’t see or hear a thing, so who knows, it might have been great…. I don’t know!

Then there was a big band playing, but I found out that it wasn’t really my thing. Still I decided to stick around a little bit longer because I didn’t want to miss the DJ set. I wish I missed it now though. All the other acts had begun later than scheduled so they pulled the plug (literally) while the DJ’s were just getting started. No juice, no music, no party! Bummer!! But still the night wasn’t a total waste…..there was a beautiful sky to watch and I wouldn’t have spotted that if I had opted to stay at home.

Sunday was sooooo much better. I stayed home in the afternoon because then they had street entertainers, jugglers and kid stuff, which I had seen last year. Nice to watch, but not every year! The night however was superb. Slagerij van Kampen played and this is probably the most original band of Holland. You never before heard or seen drums like these. Self-willed and swinging, overwhelming and spectacular. Not everyone’s piece of cake, but I love them and I’ve seen play before in theatres. Nothing beats a drumbeat, but hey, that’s just my opinion :). They played for about 90 minutes, so most of the evening was gone after they had finished. But the night was still young and I still had a lot of energy to get rid off, so again I stayed on for another DJ set, 90’s now (all 90’s music, so wrong but at the same time sooooo familiar). I couldn’t help myself as soon as the opening beats of “Everybody Dance Now!” filled the tent I started to dance and didn’t stop for two hours. Man, I LOVE to dance, even if it is on my own. Sure people look at you (but who cares), like you crazy or something (after all, you are doing something that people just wouldn’t do), but they soon got used to the idea. I even convinced some other solo goers to dance too…..pff, at some stage we even formed a group of our own. Amazing fact of life, a lot of people feel better in a group :)

Another amazing fact of the evening, everybody can dance to 90’s music. There were elderly people doing some ballroom steps to Vanilla Ice (?! I don't know how, but they did :)), my peers were dancing in sets of two like we used to do way back when, younger people danced in groups with their purses and coats in the middle, teenagers doing their thing all separately and all over the place and of course there were kids running around with a big smile on their face. Oh and let’s not forget there were onlookers too, you recognize them when you see them. Those people (mostly guys) checking out the dancers, beer in hand and an accessional head nod from time to time! :)

I had a grand night out! And I might be known as the village idiot for the next couple of days/weeks, people sure looked and smiled at me kind of funny today, but hey, I had an amazing night and who cares what they think! Who knows, they might even be a little bit jealous ;)

Announcement: Tomorrow, I am going to mess around with my template, I want to use the new Blogger Beta stuff so..... who knows what might happen. Maybe I’ll be back later in the day or maybe, just maybe.... my blog will be lost for ever ;)

Mr. McDonald’s, please don’t ‘Super size me’

I finally got the chance to see ‘Super size me’, a great documentary!. I can highly recommend this movie if you are interested in nutrition, (fast) food or McDonald’s. I can also suggest it to people who want to lose weight. Watching this could be very inspirational and motivating :)

Summary: The latest statistics show that two out of every three Americans are overweight, and about one out of every three of those persons is obese. Morgan Spurlock, decides to eat three meals a day at McDonald’s for thirty days, to see how it will affect him. He must eat every item on the menu at least once during the thirty days, and he must super size anything he orders when super sizing is suggested by the McDonald’s employees. And the outcome is not a pretty picture :)

One other thing this documentary will do is change the way you look at McDonald’s marketing, health and fast food. And if the documentary doesn’t alter your view, the bonus material probably will. One of the bonus items is called ‘the smoking fry’. That’s sounds promising! They did a food experiment. In the office they had some glass jars with a lid. McDonald’s (and some regular) burgers and fries were put in separate jars and they were kept at room temperatures. The decay was monitored and of course things started to get mouldy pretty soon…… except for the French fries. After 10 weeks the French fries looked exactly the same as the first day. Now how freaky is that? Can you imagine having that in your system? That can’t be right, now can it?

Like I said, interesting documentary, it's an entertaining and thought-provoking film and leaves you wanting more…….more healthy food, that is!

Oh and that doesn’t mean that you should go for the new “healthy” salads. According to the documentary, their new premium ranch chicken salad with dressing delivers more calories than a Big Mac and 51 grams of fat, 79% of your daily fat intake.

Balance days

Wow, that almost sounds like a circus act doesn’t it? But it’s not! It’s just the new healthy advice the Dutch Nutrition Centre came up with. The Dutch Nutrition Centre conducts projects and campaigns to promote a healthy diet pattern.

So, how does the balance day work?
Quite simple actually. A balance day is a day ‘less’ after a day ‘more’. Did you eat too much yesterday, then today will be your balance day. A balance day is NOT a diet day. On your balance day you will watch what you eat and move/exercise more. That way, things will balance out and your weight will stay the same.

When will you need a balance day?
When you have eaten too much, you can feel overstuffed. Do you need a balance day? Probably not! It all depends on your normal eating behaviour. When will you need a balance day then? Example: Normally you eat 2 sandwiches and an apple for lunch. But today you want something different. You eat 2 rolls with brie and another cheese, a packed of crisps and piece of pie. Instead of walking to work, you took the car/bus. It’s clear that you consumed more and burned fewer calories then you would do on a normal day. Time for a balance day I would say :)

It’s your choice, your responsibility.
Take a balance day, or just leave it. A ‘more’ day is not always easy to recognize. It’s so easy to eat something extra: cake on somebody’s birthday, an extra snack/packet of crisps, candy bar or a few extra pints or glasses of wine. If it’s just every now and then, that’s okay…. But if it happens on a regular basis, you will gain weight because of all the extra calories. You are the only one who knows what you really ate. Take your responsibility and take a balance day!

Note:
A balance day is not a diet day. So don’t skip meals! Eating very little is also out of the question. Just make healthy choices, do an extra workout or take a longer walk then usual.

Oh… and it works! I’ve been doing this for a long time now (so, it’s not as new as the Dutch Nutrition Centre thinks) and my weight is always the same…..well, almost always; the holiday season doesn’t count ;)

Other news: McDonald’s to put nutrition facts on packaging

Mindlessly eating a fat burger is going to be a thing of the past!

Customers soon will know that the Big Mac they just bought contains almost half of their recommended daily fat intake by just looking at the wrapper. Information including calories, fat, protein, carbohydrates and sodium will be on all their products. McDonald’s is introducing this new packaging style in the Netherlands (of all places) at the beginning of 2006. By the end of the year all restaurants will be using it (at least that’s the plan).

This all is part of the new campaign McDonald’s has undertaken. Now they (want to) promote a balanced, active lifestyle. They already eliminated the “Super Size” menu option.

Just so you know: a Big Mac contains roughly 510 calories and 26 grams of fat. When you also add a medium French fries, ketchup and a medium vanilla shake it comes to a grand total of 1308 calories and 56 grams of fat.

I’m lovin’ it…….. NOT!